Shaving Cream Art Project For Kids

Make beautiful creative greeting cards with shaving cream and liquid watercolors. This is a super fun shaving cream art project.

Years ago, when my oldest was in preschool, we were apart of a Parent Participation Preschool and we had messy art days sometimes. One of the messy art projects was a shaving cream art project. There is something soothing about mixing your hands in that soft foamy substance. If you’ve never tried it, I highly suggest it. It’s very therapeutic. And since we’ve been stuck inside for over a month thanks to the Coronavirus, I thought this would be a great fun project. And I combined it with a service. We are making greeting cards with our shaving cream that we are going to pass out to friends and neighbors to brighten their day.

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Materials needed for your shaving cream art project

Pan or cookie sheet
Shaving cream
Liquid Watercolors
White Cardstock
Object for scraping like Pampered Chef scraper

Step 1. Let your kids spray their can of shaving cream into a pan, which will hopefully keep most of the shaving cream contained. But if not, it’s really easy to wipe up with a wet sponge. They will really enjoy watching the shaving cream grow as it leaves the can.

Use liquid watercolors like these and drop them onto the shaving cream. For my younger kids, I do this part for them so they don’t spray it all over the place. My older kids like to do it themselves so they can be more creative. I haven’t tried it, but I think you could also use food coloring, or gel food coloring that is dissolved into water. The liquid watercolor we have is very vibrant which is why I like it so much. A lot goes a long way.

Step 2. Next, your kids can use their hands or a tool like a tooth pick, skewer, or craft stick, to swirl the colors on top of the shaving cream and make a marbled effect. You don’t want the colors to mix into the shaving cream too much. You want them to sit on top.

Then, take a piece of cardstock and place it on top of the shaving cream and press it a little to make sure it’s touching in all areas.

Step 3. Peel the cardstock off the shaving cream and place onto the table or a mat and scrape off the shaving cream from the paper.

Step 4. You’ll be left with your amazing design. Doesn’t that look so cool? It’s like watching magic!

After you’ve printed your design, you can mix the color and shaving cream all together and then put new colors on top for another card. Do this over and over until you’re all done. And you can accomplish this with only one can of shaving cream! I love how this can provide lots of entertainment and you can get a lot of cards out of a few supplies.

You can get really creative with this like my 13 and 17 year old daughters and make lots of different designs. They really enjoyed using their creativity to make a butterfly, flowers, etc. If you use a small amount of color, the colors will be more of a pastel shade. If you use lots of color like my 13 year old, they turn out very vibrant.

But be warned, the color will stain your hands. It will come off, so don’t worry. It usually wears off after a day. You could also wear an apron to protect your clothes. The liquid watercolors we used are washable and non-toxic, so they should come out of clothing, but there is always a possibility that it won’t.

When my kids were all done, they jumped in the bath and took the shaving cream with them from out of the pans. They rubbed it all over the walls of the bath tub and their bodies. Two fun activities in one!

Another technique we tried was to scoop out some of the shaving cream before putting the cardstock on. Then when we put the cardstock down, we didn’t press down very hard. Then when you scrape away the shaving cream, there are white spots that are left.

When you are all done, set your cardstock aside to dry. It will curl as it dries. Once it’s dried, press it flat by putting it in between some heavy books for a few hours. Then cut your cardstock in half to give you two cards. Fold them in half and use your imagination to write some nice things for your friends, neighbors, or family.

You can also use a Cricut or other cutting machine to cut some designs out of the front of your card. I made the heart card with my Cricut Maker. You can get the cut file to make your own. The file comes with PDF, SVG, DXF, JPEG, and PNG formats. Fill out the form below and it will be sent to your email.